Category: Project Reconnect

By Theresa RitzerNördlingen is a town of nearly 20,000 people in Bavaria, Germany. And its adult education center, called a Volkshochschule, offers basic German language courses for refugees. In these courses, students and instructors use 25 Google Chromebooks, received from NetHope’s Project Reconnect. The Chromebooks help deepen the lessons, and have become an integral part … Continued

By Theresa RitzerSharare is 15 years old. Two years ago, she and her family arrived in Germany from Afghanistan, from a region where girls and women are denied access to education. After six months in Germany, she and her younger sister (both pictured above; Sharare at left) joined a “Welcome” class in Erding, a district … Continued

By Theresa Ritzer, Project ReconnectIt’s been three years since Haxhere Salkurti and her husband moved from Albania to Gelsenkirchen, Germany – without speaking a single word of German. Today, Haxhere teaches German courses for refugees and uses laptops to make the lessons more interactive and fun. With the help of Google Chromebooks from NetHope’s Project … Continued

By Sybille FleischmannUntil he left Afghanistan at age 18, Hamid Husaini (left, in picture above) had only been to school three years. Today, he bakes pies at an ice cream shop in southern Germany, and studies German and math with a donated Google Chromebook.Back in Afghanistan, Husaini’s mother worked as a teacher for UNICEF in … Continued

By Sybille FleischmannVolunteers in the region of Birkenfeld, Germany plan to teach refugees German and math using Google Chromebooks. And to help them get there, the volunteers are being tutored by Omar Azad Ahmad, a refugee from Syria, on how to use and manage the new laptops. Ahmad (pictured right) is Kurdish, and hails from Qamishli, … Continued

By Sybille FleischmannIn 2011, Ibrahim Mohamed Saeid was working as a carpenter in Eritrea when the police suddenly appeared at his workplace to arrest him. Saeid’s brother, who had received a scholarship to study in India, had left Eritrea without permission, which, in turn, left his family vulnerable to punishment. And though he had committed … Continued

By Wieland Holfelder, Engineering Director at Google GermanyIn January 2016, Google and NetHope started Project Reconnect with the joint goal of providing refugees in Germany with access to online information and educational resources. To this end, Project Reconnect is distributing 25,000 Chromebooks to organizations working with refugees in Germany. Google.org, Google’s philanthropic arm, donated $5 million to NetHope for … Continued

By Frank Schott, Managing Director of Global Programs, NetHopeOver the years, NetHope, UNHCR and many international and local non-profit organizations have been working to support families that have been forced to flee their homes for safety in neighboring countries. In advance of World Refugee Day on June 20, we would like to recognize the amazing … Continued

By Sybille Fleischmann, Project Lead for Project Reconnect“Call me Thomas,” says Dr. Thomas von Rueden, shaking my hand with a grin. The fifty year-old man with gray-black curls leads the team of Asylplus, an organization that provides refugees access to education, and hopefully, to job prospects. While answering my questions, Thomas sticks a silver-gray adhesive label with … Continued

Sign up for our newsletter

Follow Us

Thank you to Mercy Corps, Save the Children, Wildlife Conservation Society, Concern Worldwide, SOS-Children's Villages and Norwegian Refugee Council for their generous support with outstanding photography.